Liam Gowing & The Family Jewels

A lifelong multi-instrumentalist musician and occasional session player, Dallas-born LA resident Liam Gowing put his first love—writing and recording music—on the backburner for most of the last decade as he concentrated on a career in journalism, working variously for the LA Times, LA Weekly, the Onion's A.V. Club, SPIN, Filter, Paste, Flavorpill and the NME. But after the death of his father in late 2009, he returned to it with a black-humored vengeance. The resulting album "Drunk Sluts Forever"–a mostly DIY project recorded largely in a six-month span between 2011 and 2012 (then delayed by a serious bout of tinnitus)–collects 10 of his recent compositions.
Due out in late summer/early fall on the homemade imprint MojoSon Music, the record features Gowing solo on multiple layers of vocals and an extensive array of instruments—guitar, bass, piano, drums, harmonica, recorder, tambourine, castanets and shakers as well as (through the magic of a MIDI keyboard) organ, synth, electric piano, vibraphone, steelpan, strings, horns and woodwinds—along with a smattering of public domain sound effects and percussion loops. The result is an eclectic assemblage of maximalist power pop encrusted with chunks of stoner rock, psychedelic funk, surrealist disco and electronica plus a Gothic-cum-sci-fi Western instrumental, two or three classical interludes, a hip-hop influenced funeral march and even a quasi-country tune complete with a Bluegrass guitar solo.
After completing his mixes for Drunk Sluts Forever, Gowing's friend and chosen interlocutor Bill O'Neil was so stoked on the record that he demanded they put a band together to play it out, then helped assemble a core group of longtime musical collaborators to do so, including himself on guitar, Ali Sagheb on bass and Eric Allgood—best known for his mid-aughts work with soul-infused garage rockers the BellRays—on drums. The resulting band, the Family Jewels, wouldn't be complete without "the Lady Larynxes"—Audrey Tess Casey and Michelle Anne Johnson—on harmonies (there are a LOT) and backing vocals.

Teleskopes

Victory

Victory Is Music is the debut LP from Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Robert Fleming. The LP was recorded, produced and written by Robert Fleming in his bedroom and his makeshift recording studio using his DIY aesthetic. It features Joey Waronker (Atoms For Peace, Ultraista, Beck) on drums and is mixed/mastered by multiple-Grammy award winning engineer Chris Testa (Rick Rubin, Butch Vig).

Victory is a pop hit factory who finds beauty in the everyday noise of the city, and art in the conflict of the day.

Black Hi-Lighter

Black Hi-Lighter use guitars, bass, drums, smoke and lights to create upbeat, epic, sexy, intelligent and catchy songs, and deliver them with the passion and fun that rock is all about.

The band was created in 2010, by original members James Poulos and Mark Reback in the creative hub that is Los Angeles' eastside. They've since added bassist David Wright, and guitarist Eric Liljestrand to the line-up. The band has been getting radio airplay on KCSN 88.5 FM in SoCal (and online), as "Local Anesthetic" Band of the Week by DJ Julie Slater on "Out On A Limb", along with appearing on Kevin Bronson's "BuzzBandsLA" program on Moheak Radio and KCSN.

The band's new full-length record "Bite The Bullet" will be released on 3/19/13 and was produced by Grammy-winner Eric Liljestrand and mastered in analog by the legendary Joe Gastwirt. The record Bullet reflects BHL's love of early '70s glam and late '90s alt rock, throwing Bowie, T. Rex, Queen and Badfinger into a sweaty, dirty backroom with The Verve, Guided By Voices, Queens of the Stone Age and Radiohead.